dissolute and lazy monks. Scholars, like Colet, read the New
Testament in Greek and lectured on justification by faith before
they knew of Luther, and More included among the institutions
of Utopia a rather more liberal and enlightened religion than
that which he observed around him. Erasmus was read and
approved, and his notion of reform by culture no doubt attracted
many adherents among English scholars. Luther’s works found
their way into England, and were read and studied at both
Oxford and Cambridge. In May 1521 Wolsey attended a pompous
burning of Lutheran tracts in St Paul’s churchyard, where
Bishop Fisher preached ardently against the new German heresy.
Henry VIII. himself stoutly maintained the headship of the pope,
and, as is well known, after examining the arguments of Luther,
published his Defence of the Seven Sacraments in 1521, which won
for him from the pope the glorious title of “Defender of the Faith.”
The government and the leading men of letters and prelates
appear therefore to have harboured no notions of revolt before
the matter of the king’s divorce became prominent in 1527.
Henry’s elder brother Arthur, a notoriously sickly youth of scarce fifteen, had been married to Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, but had died less than five months after the marriage (April 1502), leaving and the doubts as to whether the union had ever been physicallyHenry VIII. and the divorce case. consummated. Political reasons dictated an alliance between the young widow and her brother-in-law Henry, prince of Wales, nearly five years her junior; Julius II. was induced reluctantly to grant the dispensation necessary on account of the relationship, which, according to the canon law and the current interpretation of Leviticus xviii. 16, stood in the way of the union. The wedding took place some years later (1509), and several children were born, none of whom survived except the princess Mary. By 1527 the king had become hopeless of having a male heir by Catherine. He was tired of her, and in love with the black-eyed Anne Boleyn, who refused to be his mistress. He alleged that he was beginning to have a horrible misgiving that his marriage with Catherine had been invalid, perhaps downright “incestuous.” The negotiations with Clement VII. with the hope of obtaining a divorce from Catherine, the reluctance of the pope to impeach the dispensation of his predecessor Julius II., and at the same time to alienate the English queen’s nephew Charles V., the futile policy of Wolsey and his final ruin in 1529 are described elsewhere (see ENGLISH HISTORY; HENRY VIII.; CATHERINE OF ARAGON). The king’s agents secured the opinion of a number of prominent universities that his marriage was void, and an assembly of notables, which he summoned in June 1530, warned the pope of the dangers involved in leaving the royal succession in uncertainty, since the heir was not only a woman, but, as it seemed to many, of illegitimate birth.
Henry’s next move was to bring a monstrous charge against the clergy, accusing them of having violated the ancient laws of praemunire in submitting to the authority of papal legates (although he himself had ratified the appointment of Wolsey as legate a latere). The clergy of theBeginning of England’s revolt against papacy. province of Canterbury were fined £100,000 and compelled to declare the king “their singular protector and only supreme lord, and, as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ, the supreme head of the Church and of the clergy.” This the king claimed, perhaps with truth, was only a clearer statement of the provisions of earlier English laws. The following year, 1532, parliament presented a petition to the king (which had been most carefully elaborated by the monarch’s own advisers) containing twelve charges against the bishops, relating to their courts, fees, injudicious 'appointments and abusive treatment of heretics, which combined to cause an unprecedented and “ marvellous disorder of the godly quiet, peace and tranquillity” of the realm. For the remedy of these abuses parliament turned to the king, “in whom and by whom the only and sole redress, reformation and remedy herein absolutely rests and remains.” The ordinaries met these accusations with a lengthy and dignified answer; but this did not satisfy the king, and convocation was compelled on the 15th of May 1532, further to -clarify the ancient laws of the land, as understood by the king, in the very brief, very humble and very pertinent document known as the “Submission of the Clergy.” Herein the king’s “most humble subjects daily orators, and bedesmen” of the clergy of England, in view of his goodness and fervent Christian zeal and his learning far exceeding that of all other kings that they have read of, agree never to assemble in convocation except at the king’s summons, and to enact and promulgate no constitution or ordinances except they receive the royal assent and authority. Moreover, the existing canons are to be subjected to the examination of a commission appointed by the king, half its members from parliament, half from the clergy, to abrogate with the king’s assent such provisions as the majority find do not stand with God’s laws and the laws of the realm. This appeared to place the legislation of the clergy, whether old or new, entirely under the monarch’s control. A few months later Thomas Cranmer, who had been one of those to discuss sympathetically Luther’s works in the little circle at Cambridge, and who believed the royal supremacy would tend to the remedying of grave abuses and that the pope had acted ultra vires in issuing a dispensation for the king’s marriage with Catherine, was induced by Henry to succeed Warham as archbishop of Canterbury. About the same time parliament passed an interesting and important statute, forbidding, unless the king should wish to suspend the operation of the law, the payment to the pope of the annates. This item alone amounted during the previous forty-six years, the parliament declared, “ at the least to eight score thousand pounds, besides other great and intolerable sums which have yearly been conveyed to the said court of Rome by many other ways and means to the great impoverishment of this realm.” The annates were thereafter to accrue to the king; and bishops and archbishops were thenceforth, in case the pope refused to confirm them,[1] to be consecrated and invested within the realm, “in like manner as divers other archbishops and bishops have been heretofore in ancient times by sundry the king’s most noble progenitors.” No censures, excommunications or interdicts with which the Holy Father might Vex or grieve the sovereign lord or his subjects, should be published or in any way impede the usual performance of the sacraments and the holding of the divine services. In February parliament discovered that “ by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles ” it was manifest that the realm of England was an empire governed by one supreme head, the king, to whom all sorts and degrees of people-both clergy and laity ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience, and that to him God had given the authority finally to determine all causes and contentions in the realm, “ without restraint, or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world.” The ancient statutes of the praemunire and pro visors are recalled and the penalties attached to their violation re-enacted. All appeals were to be tried within the realm, and suits begun before an archbishop were to be determined by him without further appeal. Acting on this, Cranmer tried the divorce case before his court, which declared the marriage with Catherine void and that with Anne Boleyn, which had been solemnize cl privately in January, valid. The pope replied by ordering Henry under pain of excommunication to put away Anne and restore Catherine, his legal wife, within ten days. This sentence the emperor, all the Christian princes and the king’s own subjects were summoned to carry out by force of arms if necessary.
As might have been anticipated, this caused no break in the policy of the English king and his parliament, and a series of famous acts passed in the year 1534 completed and confirmed the independence of the Church of England, which, except during five years under Queen Mary,Secession of England from the papal monarchy, 1534. was thereafter as completely severed from the papal monarchy as the electorate of Saxony or the duchy Hesse. The payment of annates and of Peter’s pence
- ↑ Cranmer himself had taken the oath of canonical obedience to the Holy See and duly received the pallium.
